


The Dependable Guardian

by fog_shadow



Category: GOREY Edward - Works
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 03:33:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8040871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fog_shadow/pseuds/fog_shadow
Summary: It came seventeen years ago—and to this day
  
  It has shown no intention of going away.

The world is full of far more horrific things that go bump (or crunch) in the night than humans will probably ever realize. If a few residents of a single house cannot manage to do anything other than provoke such forces, surely that need be no one's concern but their own. However, in a remarkable stroke of good fortune, one short, furry being—with a partiality for white tennis shoes—decides to take upon itself the onus of looking after a certain hapless family.

  Or, for every inconvenience the Doubtful Guest causes the household, it saves them from something far worse.





	The Dependable Guardian

**Author's Note:**

> I make no promises at all for the updating of this fic, much less its eventual completion. That said, each chapter should be a self-contained ficlet, inspired by a couplet from Gorey's poem.

> _When they answered the door on that wild winter night,  
>  There was no one expected—and no one in sight._
> 
> —Edward Gorey, 'The Doubtful Guest'  
> 

  


There was something inside the house: a malevolence that might ordinarily have comfortably brooded, but which had somehow been roused into vicious rage. Perhaps the particular distribution of bodies in the drawing room had caused the abrupt shift in temper, or perhaps it was the juxtaposition of that evening's supper leftovers with the dough already set out to rise for the next morning's breakfast bread. Maybe the wind, unusually strong that night, had struck a particularly unpleasant note, and whatever bad luck had been built into the walls and foundations of the house had heard it, and woken up, and decided it would rather be _doing_ instead of merely _lurking_.

There was something outside the house: a whimsicality that might well have passed by on its fanciful way, but that its keen awareness perceived the thing inside. On an impulse, the whimsicality decided that intervention was called for, and accordingly presented itself at the front door.

Through a series of curious historical phenomena—ranging from architectural fads to the thoughtless violence of a pair of fires—the household's servants resided in a building entirely separate from the main house. Through an inexplicable set of miscommunications, mutual irritation, and mistletoe, they had already retired for the evening—despite supper being barely a half-hour past—without having put the left-overs up for the night. Or the child.

Thus it came to pass that, when a great thumping was heard at the door, the family that comprised entire human population of the house came outside either to look for the elusive visitor or to wonder over the curious circumstance, and not a soul was left indoors when everything in the house went _ping_.

From its vantage point on top of a decorative, architectural urn, the whimsicality could clearly smell an onrushing, _outdoor_ , retaliatory _pop_ , which to be quite honest it had not anticipated. If the truth were to be told, its subsequent scramble indoors was far more a matter of frantic self-preservation than a display of carefully considered altruism and inter-species communication. Nonetheless, five humans, including one young child, all scrambled back inside after it, exclaiming no longer merely to one another, but to the intruder as well.

For its part, said intruder rather felt that after the whole upset, the solid comfort of a dependable wall was very much called for. Some further consolation also came in hearing the voices of the entire family, gradually rising in tone from entreaty to shouted demand; the general clamour, whatever its substance, at least indicated that they had clearly all survived something far more horrible than their understandings could accommodate. Under the highly stressful conditions of the evening, gratitude could hardly be expected. However, the whimsicality found that simple relief at one's own continued existence—together with a certain self-congratulation for the continued existences of others—very nearly sufficed.


End file.
